JMS showrunning Spike’s Red Mars adaptation

“The news breaks: the Red Mars series for Spike TV is a go, with me on board as showrunner….” J. Michael Straczynski posted on Twitter late on the evening of December 7.

The Babylon 5 and Sense8 maestro will be in charge of the 10 episode series for Spike, based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s novels about the colonisation of the red planet by a group of strangers struggling to work together and face the challenges on the inhospitable world.

“The heart and soul of Red Mars is about humanity. This group of strangers must find a way to live together and survive under the most daunting conditions mankind has ever faced to become the first living generation of Martians. They will be each other’s greatest source of strength — and if they can’t coexist — the greatest reason for failure,” Spike’s exec vice president of original series Sharon Levy said. Levy will oversee the project, along with Spike’s Ted Gold, Justin Lacob and Lauren Ruggiero.

“We are thrilled to join forces with Spike to bring Kim Stanley Robinson’s dynamic world of the Mars trilogy to television audiences for the first time ever, particularly in the brilliant creative voice of science fiction legend J. Michael Straczynski,” Marcy Ross, president of Skydance Television, added

“I look forward to being a part of bringing my long time client’s literary achievement to the screen. Its themes are important to the future we are creating,” said-co-executive producer Vince Gerardis of Robinson, who will be a consultant on the series.